Innocent Panmei sdb
Principal, Christ King Hr Sec School Kohima
Vatican City – Over a decade into his transformative papacy, Pope Francis stands as a tireless apostle of peace, compassion, and hope. From the slums of Buenos Aires to the world’s biggest stages, the 88-year-old pontiff has devoted his life to serving the downtrodden, bridging divides between nations, extending mercy, fighting injustice, defending the sanctity of life and family, and championing the planet. In words and deeds, he has emerged as a unifying moral voice in an era of conflict and inequality.
A Shepherd for the Poor and Humble Beginnings
Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in 1936 to Italian-immigrant parents in Argentina, Pope Francis’s life has been marked by simplicity and solidarity with the poor. As Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he was dubbed the “slum bishop” for his frequent visits to the city’s villasmiseria, where he ministered to those living in poverty and despair. These early experiences shaped the man who would become the first Latin American and first Jesuit pope in 2013. He took the name Francis in honour of St. Francis of Assisi – the medieval saint renowned for peace, humility, care for the poor, and love of creation. From his first moments as pope, Francis signalled a new era of humility: appearing on the balcony of St. Peter’s without the usual regal cape and gold cross, wearing the same simple cross he had worn as a parish priest. He chose to live in a modest guesthouse rather than the ornate papal apartments and swapped the bulletproof limousine for a simple Ford Focus. “How I would like a Church that is poor and for the poor,” he declared days after his election– setting the mission statement for his papacy.
Pope Francis quickly put these words into action. His very first trip outside Rome was to the tiny island of Lampedusa in July 2013, where countless migrants had perished trying to reach Europe. There, the Pope mourned the “globalization of indifference” – a world grown cold to the suffering of others. “We have become used to the suffering of others… It doesn’t interest us. It’s not our business,” he lamented, urging a return to compassion. Later that month, in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, he walked muddy paths to meet families and insisted “no one can remain insensitive to the inequalities that persist in the world”, calling for a “culture of solidarity” to replace selfishness and individualism. Such moments – a pope in the slums, a pastor on the margins – endeared Francis to millions and signalled the Catholic Church’s renewed commitment to serving the poorest of the poor. He established charitable initiatives in Rome (from showers and clinics for the homeless near the Vatican to personally sheltering refugees) and created an annual World Day of the Poor to keep society’s most vulnerable at the heart of the Church’s consciousness. Through these acts of service and solidarity, Pope Francis has lived out his gospel maxim that “true power is service” and that the Church must be “a poor Church for the poor”.
Bridge-Builder for Nations and Peacemaker on the World Stage
On the global stage, Pope Francis has emerged as a daring reconciler of warring nations and a diplomatic bridge-builder. In 2014, barely a year into his papacy, he played a pivotal behind-the-scenes role in brokering the historic thaw between the United States and Cuba, helping mediate secret talks that ended a half-century of Cold War estrangement. Both President Barack Obama and Cuban leader Raúl Castro publicly thanked Francis for his moral leadership in facilitating dialogue. The following year, during a visit to Cuba, the Pope urged a continued path of reconciliation: “we want to be a Church which goes forth to build bridges, to break down walls, to sow seeds of reconciliation,” he preached at Cuba’s holiest shrine. It was a message he would carry days later to the United States, addressing Congress and the United Nations with an appeal for peace and mutual respect among former foes.
Francis’s efforts to reconcile divided peoples span the globe. In the Holy Land, he brought Israeli and Palestinian presidents together for an unprecedented prayer for peace in the Vatican Gardens in 2014, imploring that “the culture of encounter” replace the cycle of conflict. In Colombia, he supported peace talks that ended decades of civil war, traveling there in 2017 to urge Colombians to take “the first step” towards national reconciliation. Perhaps the most dramatic example came in 2019, when Pope Francis hosted the rival leaders of South Sudan – a nation torn by civil war – for a spiritual retreat. At the retreat’s conclusion, the 82-year-old pontiff stunned the world by kneeling to kiss the feet of South Sudan’s president and rebel vice president, begging them to keep the peace. “I am asking you as a brother to stay in peace. I am asking you with my heart, let us go forward,” he implored, urging them not to return to a bloody civil war. Aides had to assist the Pope, hobbled by age and chronic knee pain, as he lowered himself to the floor in this unprecedented act of humility. The image of the Pope literally on his knees for peace captured his papacy’s essence: a servant of peace willing to cross any boundary – geographic or personal – to halt the tears of war.
Pope Francis has repeatedly used his moral authority to promote global peace and defuse crises. He has dispatched personal envoys to conflict zones, offered the Vatican’s good offices for mediation, and led the Church in prayer and fasting for peace – as he did during the Syrian war threat in 2013 and more recently for Ukraine. Since the eruption of war in Ukraine in February 2022, Francis has made passionate appeals for peace at nearly every public appearance, sometimes twice a week. “Never again war!” he exclaimed in his 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti, calling the total elimination of nuclear weapons “a moral and humanitarian imperative” and urging that war not be seen as a solution in the 21st century. Though frustrated by the persistence of conflicts, he has persisted in diplomacy – meeting with refugees and leaders from Ukraine and Russia, and even rebuking Russia’s Patriarch for supporting the invasion, saying religious leaders must be agents of peace, not “altar boys” for war. From the Middle East to Africa, from Latin America to the Korean Peninsula, Francis’s consistent plea has been for dialogue over violence, reconciliation over retaliation. In a world still riven by war, he has kept alive the hope that through perseverance and prayer, even the deepest enmities can be healed.
The Embrace of Mercy, Forgiveness and Reconciliation
If one word could summarize Pope Francis’s spiritual focus, it might be “mercy.” Early in his papacy, he proclaimed an Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy (2015–2016) dedicated to forgiveness and reconciliation, reminding a divided world of the healing power of compassion. “It is time to return to the basics and to bear the weaknesses and struggles of our brothers and sisters,” he wrote, urging the Church and society to rediscover kindness and solidarity. During that Holy Year, Catholics everywhere were asked to forgive old grievances and seek reconciliation, and the Pope himself became a global ambassador of mercy. He visited prisons and washed the feet of inmates (including Muslims and women, in a break with past tradition), symbolically demonstrating that no one is beyond the reach of God’s forgiveness. He made surprise visits to the sick and the drug-addicted, and he commissioned “Missionaries of Mercy” priests to travel the world facilitating healing confessions. At a Mass closing the Year of Mercy, Francis implored humanity to keep open the door of forgiveness: “Let us ask for the grace of never closing the doors of reconciliation and pardon, but rather of knowing how to go beyond evil and differences, opening every possible pathway of hope”. It was a fitting summation of his belief that forgiveness is the gateway to peace – in our hearts, our families, and between nations.
Throughout his papacy, Pope Francis has modelled the power of forgiveness in action. He has met with former guerilla fighters and their victims in Colombia to help them embrace and forgive one another after decades of bloodshed. He has publicly forgiven the man who shot and wounded Pope John Paul II, welcoming him in Rome. In 2022, Francis travelled to Canada for a historic act of contrition: he personally apologized to Indigenous peoples on their land for the “deplorable evil” of Church-run residential schools that abused Indigenous children. With tears in his eyes, he begged forgiveness for the sins of Church members, calling it part of a “journey of healing” and reconciliation with Indigenous communities. Indigenous survivors described the gesture as bringing a measure of peace, even as work toward full reconciliation continues. Francis often says “God never tires of forgiving – it is we who tire of asking for mercy.” He has made a point of hearing confessions himself during youth gatherings, and even in the public eye he is not afraid to show vulnerability – famously asking at nearly every appearance, “Please, pray for me,” as a humble request for forgiveness and support. Under Pope Francis’s guidance, the Catholic Church has increasingly presented itself as a “field hospital” – binding up wounds through mercy, rather than a tribunal of harsh judgment. In a world torn by division, his emphasis on mercy and reconciliation offers a path to bridge personal and communal divides, reminding all that “each time we go to confession, God embraces us” and that we too can embrace one another in forgiveness.
Champion of Social Justice & Equality
Pope Francis’s voice has been one of the most forceful on the global stage in confronting social injustice, poverty, and inequality. With his characteristic candour, he has denounced an economic system “based on the worship of the god of money” and “throw-away culture” that discards the poor and vulnerable. “This economy kills,” he warned bluntly in his 2013 apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, critiquing unfettered capitalism and global indifference to misery. Visiting a favela in Brazil in 2013, he urged the world’s rich to do far more to uplift the poor, insisting that “no one can remain insensitive to the inequalities that persist” and exhorting young people to keep their “sensitivity towards injustice” alive. Francis has emerged as a tribune for the oppressed, speaking out on behalf of indigenous peoples, unemployed workers, landless farmers, and migrants stranded at borders. He convenes grassroots activists at the Vatican (in events called the World Meeting of Popular Movements) and tells them he supports their fight for "land, lodging, and work" (Tierra, techo, trabajo,). Acknowledging criticisms from some elites, Francis wryly noted, “I know some people think I’m a bit of a pest for defending the poor, but it won’t stop me”. Indeed, he once joked that he will continue to “make a pest of himself” by persistently questioning social structures of sin that foster exclusion and inequality.
Throughout his travels, the Pope has shone a spotlight on those left behind. In the Philippines, he wept with survivors of a devastating typhoon and decried the neglect of the poor in natural disasters. In Nairobi’s Kangemi slum, he denounced “new forms of colonialism” that perpetuate urban poverty. He has scolded world leaders at forums like the U.N. and Davos, telling them not to ignore the cry of the poor: “No one can remain deaf to the cry of the poor”, he told the powerful, urging them to examine their conscience about the structures that create poverty. Under Francis, the Vatican itself has taken concrete steps for justice: for instance, the Pope demanded and oversaw the forgiveness of debts for impoverished nations, and he reformed Catholic charities to prioritize direct service over bureaucracy. He has also linked arms with other faith leaders to call for equitable development – co-signing a 2019 declaration with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar promoting human fraternity and denouncing extremism and exploitation.
Crucially, Pope Francis has bridged the once-yawning gap between the Church’s pro-life stance and its social justice mission. He has insisted that caring for the unborn and caring for the poor and oppressed are not opposing or unrelated causes – they spring from the same core belief in human dignity. In a major 2018 document on holiness, he cautioned Catholics not to give “excessive importance” to certain ethical rules while ignoring the plight of the downtrodden. He urged those who fight abortion to show equal passion for the lives of “the poor and oppressed”, uniting concern for life at all stages with the struggle against poverty and injustice. In Pope Francis’s view, social justice is integral to peace – “if people die of hunger, have nothing to eat or suffer from poor health, that’s nothing [to some]. This is our crisis today. A Church that is poor and for the poor has to fight this mentality,” he said, decrying a world that treats financial crises as tragedies while yawning at human suffering. Those words, spoken early in his papacy, continue to drive initiatives like universal basic income proposals and calls for fairer economic systems. Whether addressing factory workers or refugees, Francis consistently champions the dignity of every person and the moral urgency of reducing the gaping inequalities that lead to conflict. In his simple phrases – “the poor cannot wait”, “we have to build an economy of inclusion” – he echoes the biblical prophets, stirring the conscience of a world that, as he says, “has forgotten how to cry” for its most vulnerable.
This is the first of a two part series.
